Chapter 1: It Came From The Dumpster.
"I don't remember the last time I was this tired."
Skyler Tate muttered the weary phrase as he dragged himself to his room after an exhausting morning. He had been stuck with the 'special' D-squad cadets, 'special' meaning intellectually challenged. Cruger had made Sky teach the cadets how to shoot, which meant a field trip to the shooting range. It soon became clear to Sky, after about an hour, that the cadets couldn't shoot a watermelon at point blank. That is, with the exception of one cadet who shot him, on purpose, Sky was sure, in the crotch. Those cadets ran him so ragged, he was beginning to think Cruger had given him that assignment as a punishment. "I guess it doesn't matter now." Sky said to himself. For it was his break, and he didn't have anything he had to do until after lunch. Sky opened his bedroom door, only to be hit with a pair of dirty underwear. And if that didn't make it bad enough, they were Bridge's underwear. Sky pulled the underwear off his head only to see Bridge, standing on his bed and launching laundry all over their room with a makeshift slingshot. He stopped when he saw Sky.
"Hi, Sky." Bridge said happily. "What brings you here?"
Sky glared at him. "I live here." Sky stopped to take a good look at what Bridge had done to their room. "Bridge." Sky said in a particularly perturbed tone. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Bridge grinned sheepishly. "I was playing laundry fight."
"I see." Sky said. "And who, pray tell, were you fighting?"
"My imaginary cousin, Steve. He's a really good shot." Bridge said. He threw his slingshot to Sky, who just barely caught it. "You want to play him?"
"No, Bridge." Sky fumed. "I want you to stop making a mess of this bedroom!" He stopped and looked at the slingshot more closely. "Bridge, are these pantyhose that you used to make this contraption?"
Bridge grinned. "Yep."
"Let me rephrase." Sky gave Bridge the evil eye. "Are those MY PANTYHOSE?!"
"Yeah. You have more, don't you? So who cares?"
Sky really lost it. "I CARE, Bridge!" He screamed. "You are not to use my special support pantyhose for anything, especially your WEIRDO, OBSCURE HOBBIES! Now get the HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!!"
Bridge gave him a hurt look. "But we share the room." He pointed out.
"No, we don't share the room! I share the room, with the biggest freaking idiot in S.P.D.!" Sky yelled.
Bridge pouted. "Fine, if you don't want me around then I'll just leave!" And with that, he slumped out of their room, then out the door of the S.P.D. base, where he walked aimlessly through the streets of New Tech City. After he'd wumped around the city for a while, he plopped onto a sidewalk next to the city dump. He started muttering to himself.
"Man. Now Sky hates me. If that's what my own best friend thinks of me, then everyone else must think I'm the slime of the earth." Bridge got up and walked over to the nearest dumpster. "My life sucks!" And with that, Bridge kicked the dumpster as hard as he could. Then, from inside the dumpster, he heard the most horrible, gruesome, disgusting, blood curdling sound.
"URROUMPGH!"
Bridge shot up three feet in the air. "Wh-what the hell? Who's there?" He asked. He heard the hideous sound again.
"URROUMPGH!"
A shudder went through Bridge. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought it almost sounded like a very mangled bark. Almost like . . . a dog. Bridge was just about to run home and hide under his bed, when suddenly, something in the dumpster moved. Then, out came the most hideous, repulsive beast. It might have been some kind of dog, a mutant alien dog. It was covered in ugly, gray fuzz, like a layer of mold. The sickening creature climbed out of the dumpster very slowly, and when it did Bridge saw that it was covered in rancid slime. The beast was almost as tall as Bridge, and probably weighed as much as all of B-squad put together. And when it reached Bridge, it made the most terrifying sound.
"URROUMPGH!"
Any normal person would have run away, wetting and screaming. But Bridge Carson was far from a normal person. He looked at the freakish dog-type creature and smiled.
"Aww, how cute! A puppy!" Bridge said, in a blatant distortion of reality. He reached out and petted the thing.
"Hey, puppy, you want to come home with me? You can be my new best friend!" Bridge said happily. The dog-type thing wagged what might have been its tail and barked happily.
"URROUMPGH! URROUMPGH!"
"All right, it's settled. You're coming with me, buddy. Oh, wait. I have to think of a name for you, let's see . . . "
"URROUMPGH!" The dog said. But this time it wasn't just barking. It was vomiting everything it had presumably eaten in the past three weeks.
Bridge stared at the huge puddle of bio-waste. "Hmm, that's a lot of vomit." He said thoughtfully. Bridge scratched his head. "I've got it!" He exclaimed. "I'll call you, 'Rancid Vomit From a Dumpster.' I can call you Dumpster for short. Yeah, that's it. Come here, Dumpster."
"URROUMPGH!" Was the monster's happy reply. It slugged after Bridge, toward a new home.